


Shatter Me

by Iron_Eirlyssa (Eirlyssa)



Series: Eirlyssa's 2018 Bingo Fills [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Developing Relationship, Hurt Bucky Barnes, M/M, Mechanic Tony Stark, Tony Stark Bingo 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 13:51:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14916560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eirlyssa/pseuds/Iron_Eirlyssa
Summary: When Bucky is about to lose hope of ever finding someone who can help out with his arm, a doctor tells him about a mechanic that might be able to help out. A mechanic mostly known as Iron Man.





	Shatter Me

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for my R5 square, AU: Steampunk. Might get a follow-up chapter, might not.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Bucky grimaced. The gears in his arm were grinding together, deteriorating more and more. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to use it at all anymore. It hurt, and he hated it.

When he’d first gotten it, there had been a mix of hate and appreciation. The degenerative disease that was taking his arm would take over his entire body unless he found a way to stop it. Having him become useless wasn’t something HYDRA had appreciated, and so they had replaced large parts of it with mechanisms. Having the surgery done had been torture, and even now he wasn’t sure if he wouldn’t have preferred the arm simply being cut off, even if it risked him dying anyway.

No one touched it anymore. It fascinated and repulsed people at the same time. Even Steve, his closest friend, could hardly look at it. Not to mention no one could figure out what Zola had done to it in the first place, so his chances of getting it fixed were close to zero. No matter what everyone did, it always hurt, and he’d pretty much stopped letting people near it.

It wasn’t visible with all of the metal in the way, but he knew the lack of upkeep meant the necrosis was spreading again, if slowly for now. Use of the arm stopped the spreading, and it was becoming more and more impossible to keep moving it.

As much as he hated the arm and everything it stood for, as much as he hated the absolute agony of it, Bucky was not ready to die yet.

He hadn’t told Steve. His best friend meant well, but he knew how desperate Steve would be to find a solution - any solution. He’d had an experimental medical procedure performed on himself just to be able to fight, after all, and Bucky knew exactly how desperate Steve was not to lose him again.

So he’d been making subtle enquiries, asking around if there was anyone at all who would be willing and able to take a look at his arm. One of the more reliable tips had been the doctor whose shabby office he was currently stood in front of. Natasha had told him about Bruce Banner, who had forewent a well-paying job in order to be able to help those poorer off, and who dealt with a large variety of problems.

The waiting area was not impressive. Chairs, a small table, all attached to the floor. There was no receptionist’s desk, and two doors leading to the rooms Bucky was guessing were occupied by Dr. Banner and his colleague, Dr. Betty Ross.

Two of the chairs were occupied by what he guessed was a mother and her son, the latter looking rather unwell. He nodded at them, the mother nodding back while the boy just stared ahead with feverish eyes, and sat down to wait.

“Patient for Banner?”

The doctor was older than Bucky, and tired enough it made him look even older. There was a glint of intelligence in his eyes that inspired confidence, however.

It soon became clear that, however intelligent the doctor was, he would not be able to help Bucky either.

"I'm sorry, but as soon as I start doing anything to that arm, I run the risk of rendering it ineffective, which would only allow the necrosis to spread. I don't know enough about something like the workings of your arm." Banner looked sincerely regretful. "I'm more likely to get you killed than to help you."

Bucky grimaced. “So there’s nothing to be done?”

“Not by me,” Banner admitted, but there was something in his voice that made Bucky sit up and pay attention. “Not by most people, I’d guess. You need someone to do maintenance on the technology in that arm, and there’s no doctors I know that would have any clue what to do. But there’s one mechanic, up north, that just might.”

So far, Bucky had been looking for doctors mostly. The few mechanics he had visited had mostly hurt. The last one, some Hammer guy, was actually the reason Bucky was looking at days instead of weeks.

It didn’t leave him with much of a choice except to go visit this Iron Man.

Of course, he hadn’t expected a mansion. Some backroom, maybe, or the kind of building Dr. Banner worked from. Instead, a mansion was what he found himself at.

Upon ringing the doorbell, an older man showed up at the door. Bucky was somewhat amazed he didn’t even raise an eyebrow at his rather disheveled state - he couldn’t be the usual kind of person to visit a place like this. Instead, he remained business-like. “How may I be of assistance?”

“Ah… Dr. - I mean, I’m Bucky Barnes. Dr. Banner sent me here to speak to ehm… Iron Man? About my arm?” Most of it was covered by his sleeve, but the mechanical hand was still visible.

“Please do come in.” He was led to a small side room that contained a few couches and a coffee table. An elaborate clock hung on the wall, and Bucky found his attention drawn to the intricate mechanisms that were visible. “I’ll inform Sir of your presence. Is there anything I can get for you while you wait?”

“Just some tea, please?” The fancy surroundings were making him uncertain, but the butler merely nodded and walked off, only to return soon with the tea and a small platter of cookies that looked absolutely delicious. Then, promising he would be back soon, he left to go talk to the mechanic Bucky had come here to see. A mechanic that would, hopefully, be able to do something about his arm before it killed him.

As much as he hated to admit it, it was looking more and more like Zola had not been lying when he’d said he was the only one who would be able to do what he had. Still, Bucky wasn’t willing to give up. He still had people who cared about him, even if the pain was becoming nearly unbearable for him, and he had enough strength left in him to fight for them, if not for himself. Perhaps, even if this Iron Man was unable to help him out, he would be able to advise someone else. And at least the cookies were delicious.

Gritting his teeth, he moved his arm as gently as possible. He fought to keep his breath even as the gears grinded against each other.

Instead of cursing, he tried to distract himself by looking at the clock again. It was an amazing piece, moving smoothly, the tick of seconds passing by hardly audible. Looking more closely, Bucky tried to figure out how it worked. It didn’t look as though it needed to be wound up, the gears moving in perfect accord. He’d never seen anything like it before, and he kind of wanted to take it off the wall to inspect it more closely.

He turned when he heard the door opening, the butler giving him a kind smile. “He can see you now.”

They walked through the hallway, past the grand stairs and a few other rooms Bucky only caught glances of. The small room they entered had doors in the back, and when the butler opened them he saw there were stairs leading down. “If you go down, Sir will be waiting for you there.”

Part of Bucky was very, very tempted to tell the butler he’d told someone where he’d be. Everything, from the elaborate mansion to the hidden-away entrance, reeked of suspicious. But Dr. Banner had advised he come here, and Bucky didn’t think he’d send him to his death. So he nodded at the butler and stepped down the stairs, mentally preparing himself for whatever would be down there.

As it turned out, he wasn’t prepared.

It wasn’t even the workshop, though the entire thing looked like a futurist’s dream. Boxes of cogs and screws and other materials were everywhere, some strewn across several tables that were down there. The tables contained everything, from half-finished clocks to what looked like small robotic bodies to, of all things, a sewing machine.

The thing that stopped him short, though, was the man in the middle of it all. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting of this Iron Man, but it sure wasn’t what he found. A man possibly a few years older than him, clothes rumpled, beard groomed immaculately, with the most intense eyes he had ever encountered. Eyes that were currently directed at him in a way that made him feel like they were seeing far more than he intended for them to. And when he smiled, it felt like Bucky’s heart skipped a beat.

“Welcome to my lair, Mr. Barnes. Jarvis said Bruce sent you?”

Well, that was a voice he wouldn’t mind listening to for a long while. Damn, but was there anything unattractive about this man? “He did. I went to him about my arm, but he said there wasn’t anything he could do. Then he told me about you, that you might be able to help. So…”

“Alright, if you’d take a seat here, we can see?” He gestured to a stool in front of the relatively empty table he was currently seated at himself.

“Should I take my shirt off?” He tried not to blush - really, it would be far better to simply treat the mechanic like another doctor, but he couldn’t quite manage to _unsee_ how attractive the man was.

“Probably best,” the mechanic shrugged, appearing unaffected. To him, it probably didn’t mean a thing. “That way I can see all of it, figure out what I can do for you. I might be able to get some information off just the hand, though, if it makes you uncomfortable to get undressed.”

Somehow, the fact that he actually cared about Bucky’s comfort gave him the confidence to shrug out of his shirt, trying to use his left arm as little as possible. One of the gears caught nonetheless, and he fought off a grimace.

Once he’d managed, he sat down in front of the mechanic, using his right arm to position the left. At first, the man only looked at it, cocking his head to look this way and that. Pulling up a pair of magnifying glasses, he repeated the actions. He hummed. “If I move the plates up, will that be painful for you?”

“Shouldn’t be,” Bucky admitted, “but I’m not entirely sure what all’s busted in there.” The plates were mostly there to protect the inner workings of the arm, after all. Keep things from getting in, like water, or sand. Or blood.

It didn’t hurt more than the arm regularly did, so Bucky kept silent. He watched as the other man looked around, switching out the magnifying lenses every once in a while and humming at whatever he saw, but never touching him. Used as he was to people wanting to poke around, especially the more hands-on mechanics, this was one of the weirdest examinations he’d ever had. It left him wondering whether that was a good sign or whether Iron Man was unable to help him out, too.

“Well,” the mechanic said, sitting back. There was something in his voice Bucky couldn’t quite identify. The other man took a deep breath before continuing. “Let me start with saying that if whoever did this said they were doing you a favour, they lied.”

“I don’t understand?” Zola _had_ told him this was the only way to save his arm and, considering the nature of the necrosis, probably his life. From what the doctors and engineers he’d visited had said, he’d had to conclude it was the likely truth. None of them could figure out how the man had done it, let alone replicate it.

“Thing is, someone smart enough to put this together? Even assuming this is the top of their performance, I can think of five ways this could be done that would be, one, less invasive, two, less painful, or three, both. In fact, there’s pretty much no way this could have been _more_ invasive or painful. This was made to be a torture device.” It had been anger, carefully banked. The mechanic was still looking at his arm, but Bucky could see the tightness of his jaw and the way his hand clenched around a screwdriver he’d grabbed to, presumably, keep his hands busy.

He couldn’t think of what the mechanic had said, not right now. It wasn’t a surprise, not quite, but the strange combination of pain and anger that wanted to wrench their way out of his throat were still unexpected. So he swallowed them back, determined not to let them out until he was alone. Cleared his throat. “So, now what?”

The mechanic huffed. “Good question. Now, you choose what happens. There’s a few different options. One, you decide ‘no thanks’ and walk straight out of here.”

“You’d just let me walk out of here?” There was no way the mechanic had missed the fact that doing nothing would end up killing him.

“Your choice, snowflake. Anything I do is going to hurt, I won’t lie. It’s your life, your body, so it’s your choice what you want to do.” To Bucky’s surprise, he sounded as though he meant it. If Bucky wanted it, he could walk out of here.

“And my other options?”

“Two, I do maintenance on your torture device until it’s back to its previous… performance. Probably will have to do some maintenance at least if you want to go for options three or four, too.” He was twirling the screwdriver now, eyes far away and clearly thinking. “Option three, I adapt your arm until it at least doesn’t hurt as much. I can’t make it less invasive, and not a lot more functional than it was before, but I can make it nearly painless with the current design. Option four, I overhaul the damn thing completely. There’s a few designs I can think of to improve performance, and it would be painless in the end, and it shouldn’t need nearly as much maintenance - I could even teach you how to do it yourself, so you don’t depend on other people for it. Two and three, you’d still need to come in for semi-regular maintenance so it doesn’t degenerate the way it currently has. Still, your choice.”

He looked at Bucky now, who was pretty sure he was not looking very elegant at all. He could clearly feel the way his jaw had dropped.

“You… You could do that? Would do that? Change it completely?” His voice was nearly a whisper.

Brown eyes, some shade between chocolate and honey and yet both at the same time, caught his. He was entranced, unable to look away. “If that’s what you wanted? Happily. This… _thing_ , I’d like nothing more than to throw all the other pieces away and make you a completely new one. But I mean it - only if you want it.”

“Please,” Bucky blurted. “I want… please. I want it gone, I want it not to hurt anymore, I want…” He trailed off.

Determination filled the mechanic’s eyes. “Then that’s what you’ll have. I’ll make sure of it.”

For the first time since he’d gotten the arm, maybe even before that, Bucky felt like he could breathe.


End file.
